Sous Vide Meat Recipes

Since making my own Sous Vide Machine I have spent a lot of time cooking. However, a large quantity of that cooking has been consumed by steak and other variants of beef.

So far, my favourite has been the 36 hour sirloin at 52 degrees. And by far my favourite flavouring has been adding a couple of sprigs of rosemary and a couple of cloves of garlic. The results are just fantastic. The whole steak develops a slight fragrance and the background hint of garlic is devine.

I have attempted the same with a whole joint of British rose veal (not to be confused with other non-ethical veal), and a joint of topside. Results were fabulous.

The results are always the same, delicious!

The only difficulty is the finishing, carefully selecting your meat is vital. A joint that will be easy to finish in a blisteringly hot pan (as they do come out looking rather anaemic) in terms of size and shape is very important. Like my joint in the above picture, I have to finish with a blow torch as the shape was too irregular to pan fry.

But as I have experimented with different proteins (beef, pork, fish) and different seasonings - garlic, rosemary, butter, duck pate (yes I did use pate in with a steak, and it emerged tasting like seafood?) - I have settled on one factor. FAT = FLAVOUR.

I know it is a simple concept and I already knew it to be true, it is 100 times more important when cooking sous vide. Initially I started cooking very lean cuts - fillets and loins - and they tasted amazing, but I began to use more fatty cuts and up the cooking time.

I cannot defend a rib eye steak cooked for 2 hours at 55 degrees, the connective tissue and fat remain un-rendered and unpalatable. In fact, even a sirloin will present some gristle. But up the cooking time to 24 hours and that same fat transforms into a creamy texture element that is bursting with flavour. Take a joint of topside with a reasonable layer of fat, cook it for 36 hours and you can slice off the most delicious steaks imaginable.

But please, share any ideas and recipes you have.